Posted on 06/17/2005 6:36:26 PM PDT by Cornpone
Russian prosecutors said on Thursday that a Chechen, described by media as a prominent separatist rebel, had ordered the killing of the U.S. editor of the Russian edition of Forbes magazine.
A spokesman for the prosecutor general's office said the investigation of the killing of Paul Klebnikov, shot dead in Moscow in July, had now been wound up. "We have identified a person who had ordered the murder," he said, adding that several people directly involved in the murder had been arrested and would stand trial.
The alleged Chechen mastermind, who was named, is not one of those arrested so far.
Interfax news agency said the person identified was a prominent member of the Chechen rebel leadership.
The killing of Klebnikov, who won notoriety after writing books about exiled tycoon Boris Berezovsky and on war and crime in Chechnya, attracted huge public interest.
At the time there had been suggestions that Klebnikov might have paid a price for publishing a list of Russia's wealthiest magnates in his magazine two months before he died. The list angered many of Russia's super-rich.
Forbes also clashed with Berezovsky, a former top Kremlin aide who confronted President Vladimir Putin and emigrated to Britain, over Klebnikov's 2000 book entitled "Godfather of the the Kremlin: Boris Berezovsky and the Looting of Russia".
Another theory had it that people behind Klebnikov's murder could have been taking revenge for a book in which he vigorously criticized some prominent rebels.
Criticize an Islamofacist and pay the ultimate price. Religion of peace my a**.
"At the time there had been suggestions that Klebnikov might have paid a price for publishing a list of Russia's wealthiest magnates in his magazine two months before he died. The list angered many of Russia's super-rich'
Follow the money trail - the Kremlin crowd tried to kill Yushchenko 6 times and they had plenty of reason to shut down Klebnikov. The Truth hurts and that is the lastthing the Kremlin wants.
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